There is so much to be said about Romney's speech. I do not know where to begin.

If it were not serious, I would think Romney's open admissions about his joy at outsourcing jobs, putting people out of work, and that Americans, i.e. black and brown folks are lazy moochers whose votes Obama have purchased with welfare and other "entitlements," was an updated version of Andy Kaufman's genius skits about professional wrestling and the thin line between "reality" and "fiction."

Rather, this is who Mitt Romney really is; this video is also a stark representation of how the plutocrats who support the Tea Party GOP actually think about the rest of us, those surplus people in the 53 percent that ought to simply be gotten rid of. Yes, gotten rid of and destroyed. My suggestion here is not an error in either nuance or emphasis.

We have not done an open thread here on WARN in some time. Romney's potpourri of rich people's entitlement-laced hypocrisy and Ayn Rand awfulness seems as good a reason to chat it up as any other.

Some thoughts to start us off.

How do you feel about Romney's suggestion that Latinos are an existential threat to the United States, and if they become a solid part of the Democrat base like "the blacks," the nation's future is imperiled?

Did you know that Mitt Romney is a self-made man? Daddy's bucks never helped him. Apparently, those lazy, greedy people just want to rob and steal from hardworking children of millionaires and billionaires like Romney and his friends that pulled off their own Horatio Alger miracle. They are the real victims in the Age of Obama and the Great Recession. In fact, class envy of their enterprising nature and talent, is how Obama, and those who are not John Galt, are destroying America.

Romney is reiterating the standard line that in America white folks are victimized by people of color. In the world of the Tea Party GOP and its politics of white victimology, white people are a besieged and oppressed class whose life chances would be made better if they could only access "reverse discrimination" programs such as "affirmative action," or get ahold of the mythic "race card."

28 comments:

Bruto Alto
said...

@CD

Mitt's self-made crap was just silly.

Yet I don't see how this speech would hurt Mitt. He has appeled to the same groups from day one. After a quick opps to seniors and vets, he's back to the election.This was nothing new and will be old news by the time I type this.

"those surplus people in the 53 percent that ought to simply be gotten rid of. Yes, gotten rid of and destroyed. My suggestion here is not an error in either nuance or emphasis."

This was a stretch but was it a surprise. His talking points from the Tea Party are very clear.

Something I find confusing is that the whole message of the RNC was basically 'Obama failed you' 'your life is worse under Obama' 'Obama didn't do anything to help you'But at the same time, they don't believe in the government having any role in helping people?

@bruto. the right has been using eliminationist rhetoric for some time. they should be held accountable. we had a post on it a few months back. there is an interview about right wing media and elimationism with david neihart (sp?) that is worth watching.

What Mitt doesn't seem to understand is that you have to be a good politician to be president. If you see a non white in high office, chances are pretty good you're seeing an exceptional politician(if they're democrats you can be 100% certain they're awesome). Romney's making the mistake of thinking that he's dealing with someone as sorry as he is. He doesn't understand that there are plenty of non whites that'll run circles around him due to their talent. Deval Patrick is a better politician and statesman. Being Mexican won't save him from an ass whuppin. The Mexicans and other Hispanics would see him as a Tom. He'll just be a token if he were Hispanic. It's a convenient excuse once he loses in November.

At least Romney unlike the Demo-cowards is raising the issue of entitlements!

And in a big way he's right

D*mn right, Progressive Black Folk, including Me do feel we are owed something and entitled to a modern day equivalent of the “40 acres and a Mule", that our ancestors were promised in 1865, for slavery, and now Jim Crow segregation, and today’s continuation of racism and discrimination.

You know most Black votes voted for Obama because we thought some form of "reparations" were coming to us. But of course we got nothing and the Banks and Insurance industries continue to get their entitlements.

Occupy Wall Street is about some form of “entitlement” which is a redistribution of wealth from the elite to the rest of us.

Romney just called the teakettle black.

Also, It's the Plutocratic 1% that is actually ANGRY at Romney ( more so than the democrats) for raising the issue because they like to operate in secrete. Romney's remarks should have been a lighting bolt for Democrats to stark talking about who is really entitled. But you know we don't like doing that. Romney is just another cog, a rich one but still a cog. Just like Bro. POTUS.

I mean you talk about out Romney, out-sourcing job?????????

Why is it that You never write about General Electric CEO. Jeffrey Immelt, who Obama appointed to head his "Jobs Creation Council"? This Villain has outsourced tens of thousands of jobs to China( using government subsides) including its 115-year-old X-ray business. Where is the logic? Or is it like Obama's economic policy where it takes the investment bankers who destroyed the economy to fix it, because they know it so well?

Come on Brotha pack an intellectual bag and lets run before Joe Biden learns we done spirited away!

'… the Republicans actually wanted Obama to win in 2012, but they also realized that actually rooting for Obama would be… well, rude. So, they’d run a candidate against him, but just make sure that their candidate said things that ensured that he or she couldn’t possibly win.'http://mandelman.ml-implode.com/2012/09/okay-so-now-i-appreciate-mitt-romney/

"Moreover, Romney is reinforcing the bizarre belief that in the Age of Obama racism against white people is a bigger problem than that against people of color--despite all of the available evidence to the contrary."

The democrats should just create a 'white caucus' and a 'dude caucus' and then win the next dozen elections.

Nomad, that's inline with my point. Obama has served the corporate interests far more and at the expense of the masses. Yes the Republicans have to field a candidate to keep the two party myth alive and well. But Obama is certainly the better candidate for their purposes because if any other democrat operated the way Obama does, Black folks would be up and arms and liberals as well.

I agree with a lot of what Inv Man and Nomad are saying. Barack Obama is the most brilliant stroke of disguised hypocrisy in American political history. He executes the agenda of the oligarchic psychopathocracy without a whimper of protest. They would be foolish not to reelect him.

In 2008 both the Republican and Democratic oligarchs wanted Obama elected and with the polls showing a virtual dead heat they shocked the body politic with 9/15 (although they clearly underestimated the impact the Lehman Brothers collapse would have on the global economy) leaving McCain hung out to dry while Geithner and Paulson guided Obama through the mess.

One would think that with all of Romney’s blunders Obama would be at least 10 points ahead by now. Yet the latest Gallup and AP polls show Obama leading by 1 point 47-46. The RCP avg. shows Obama at +2.9. How can this be? Well, Buckshot Billy, Redneck Randy, and Ellie Mae Clampett ain’t on the same page with Wall Street. This election has to be too close for comfort for the oligarchs, assuming they still want Obama to be their CEO.

Could there be some shock treatment on the horizon? For example: “ Power lines to Iran's most controversial nuclear enrichment plant were blown up a month ago, according to its atomic energy chief, who alleged on Monday that the UN nuclear watchdog may have been infiltrated by terrorists and saboteurs.

Abbasi-Davani did not say who he believed was behind the attacks, though Iran has often accused Israel and Tehran's Western foes of trying to sabotage its nuclear program. At least four scientists associated with the program have been assassinated since 2010, most recently in January, and the Stuxnet computer virus was used to cause malfunctions in Iran's nuclear enrichment equipment.”-- Ynet

How much more of this is Iran going to take before they are provoked to respond? Even if they continue to show extreme discipline a Gulf of Tonkin-type of incident is highly possible, particularly considering this: “In preparation for any pre-emptive or retaliatory action by Iran, warships from more than 25 countries, including the United States, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, will today (9/16) begin an annual 12-day exercise. The multi-national naval force in the Gulf includes three U.S. Nimitz class carrier groups, each of which has more aircraft than the entire complement of the Iranian air force .The carriers are supported by at least 12 warships, including ballistic missile cruisers, frigates, destroyers, and assault ships carrying thousands of U.S. Marines and special forces.” Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/us-and-britain-sending-warships-to-gulf-2012-9#ixzz26yb5bFAo

Despite all of the positives he brings them I’m not 100% sure that the oligarchs want to continue to roll with Obama. Or they could be split. We’ll have to see if, and how shock treatment is applied.

Come on Brotha pack an intellectual bag and lets run before Joe Biden learns we done spirited away!—Inv Man

LOL! LOL! LOL! I don’t think the good brother would leave if Harriet Tubman pointed her pistol to his head. LOL!

Validating your outsourcing points.

[Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, 26 business leaders assembled by the president for job-spurring ideas, includes representatives of several companies that have used outsourcing, fueling job creation abroad and job losses in the U.S. Shipping work to low-cost overseas labor markets has been a trend in American manufacturing for decades. The White House has a plan to curb outsourcing, but companies represented on the jobs council reveal just how pervasive the practice is.

There’s General Electric, whose CEO Jeffrey Immelt has served as chair of the advisory board since January 2011. Since Immelt took over GE in 2001, the company has lost 37,000 American jobs, and added 25,000 jobs overseas, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Some of those U.S. job losses are inflated by the company’s sale of NBC to Comcast in 2009.

Chris Townsend, political director of the United Electrical Workers labor union that represents roughly 5,500 GE employees in the U.S., said the company has closed more than 30 U.S. plants since Obama took office. GE would not confirm the number.

Another company represented on the jobs board is Boeing, whose CEO, James McNerney, also chairs the President’s Export Council, the principal advisory committee on international trade. The aerospace giant has shed over 14,000 American jobs since 2008, according to a recent report by Public Campaign, a campaign reform advocacy group.] -- Huff Po

If I understand you B.O. won black people over with free stuff? Stop it, that's just silly. Could it be there are black men that vote because they disliked Bush's policies? Maybe some black people (like myself) voted for the best of two evils. Rom and Ryan have gave their position and it's not what I want for the country. Just silly, what make you different than the white guy who see's civil rights as a 0 sum gain....nothing. Remember it's bigger than you.

Our First Amendment rights are under a neo-liberal assault: “Former Delaware State University Professor Faces Prison Time for Assisting Peaceful Rally.”

[Dr. Jahi Issa was formerly employed by Delaware State University as a professor of American History and Africana Studies. On August 17, 2012, Dr. Issa was fired by the HBCU for reasons attributed to an arrest that occurred on campus during a rally organized by the school’s students. The students held a peaceful rally, which was organized to protest the recent firings of black professors at DSU. After the melee, Delaware State Attorney Beau Biden’s offices filed Class A misdemeanors against the former professor. Dr. Issa is set to go to trial on October 22, 2012. Beau Biden is the oldest son of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden.

Dr. Issa: “I am a member of the NAACP. They told me they could not pursue my case. I know Al Sharpton personally and he told me the same thing.”]

@Mb. Oh the good old days of the black liberation struggle and the 3rd international. basking with each other at the Bandung conference talking about how we are going to work together to counter the evils of European hegemony. those days were so grand. we really did change the world!

me and sister harriet would have been fine in that counter-factual. she was a spy for the union army and my people were in nc and boston. i would like to believe we would have been waiting in the cut to run or join the union army with the other brothers of iron and blue. fantasies are nice, what are we doing today? and what is viable?

I don't think developing consciousness is a fantasy, howeversince the fall of the Songhai Empire Afrikan people have been repeatedly taken out of their self-determining developments by European, particularly Anglo American power structures. The FBI/COINTELPRO war on the Black Liberation Movement was hell. I’m not making any excuses. They beat us. From Marcus Garvey to the Black Panther Party, J. Edgar Hoover was the most destructive force in our history. His gendarmes took out our best generals; assaulted and incarcerated our soldiers, and all too often They looked just like Us.

After the lost opportunity of the Million Man March, I only see small pockets of resistance operating in Harriet Tubman-mode trying to save five or ten here; fifteen or twenty there. My comrades and I focus on manhood training for young fatherless males, trying to break cycles of self-destruction which lead to things like this:

Here is the deal Brotha Devega, it's it's not like we are just some pie in the sky discussing Revolution in the sandbox, It's more like we are looking at models, investigating how radical change could be possible while getting up and going to work in the morning.

It's like Harriet Tubman, she was a slave for most of her life, but she kept her eyes on the prize of liberation. Kept he eyes on a bigger picture. You on the other hand my brotha, are like an attack pit bull for the Democratic Party, foaming at the mouth and raring to go! Or fighting in "The Battle Royale" in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man! Holla at me!

I am not some sad soul fighting in the battle royal...although I am a fan of such events. I am the guy getting a kickback from the ticket sales, and sending folks into the fray to fight, who then watches the spectacle, writes about it, analyzes it, and tries to see what the bigger issues are at hand.

I have no problem sitting with my enemies--and have done so--having a drink with them and learning their ways. I also have no problem smothering them in their sleep after I kiss them on the cheek. I know they would do the same to me.

If you are a fan of Babylon 5, I am more like the Narn studying their enemies, taking apart their weapons, and selling Centauri arms to the humans to use in their battles with the Mimbari. When asked if I am scared, I simply tell the humans I am not afraid because what else can the Centauri do to me?

I have made a strategic and tactical choice to support Obama based on a utility maximizing model. It ain't that complicated. I have never hidden who and what I am. I am a black pragmatist.

@Mb. I respect your work. We need more elders and teachers for these wayward and reckless youth who do not have proper models of manhood.

How are they responding? As I said, when I was young I felt out of place given that my father was much older than my mother and was a generation apart from her and my peers' fathers.

But, I realized I learned certain lessons from him and the other folks he introduced me to that had seen real struggle--fighting in WW2, staring down Jim Crow, etc.

I am a peaceful person by nature. My father was too. But I was raised that violence, when used, is a last resort and done with careful application, and for a stated end goal. For example, I don't get why all these young brother talk all sorts of crap about who they fight, how they gonna kill someone, or throw up their hands on the street like they gonna hurt a person. The vast majority of the time they get taken out by someone who doesn't advertise the fact that they mean you harm.

Moreover, if someone hurt my family or if I had a child, my daughter or son, I would have no problem dispatching them. I would be at peace.

My father was the same way. I actually saw him threaten to kill a man once by whispering in his ear what would happen to him. Said man never bothered me again and he came over our house and apologized to my mother for his disrespect.

Would I kill you over petty crap like our young men do every day? Over a woman, or street "disrespect" or stepping on my new kicks? No. It ain't worth my time.

How do you teach our young men that cost benefit analysis? Why do they devalue their lives so much?

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Who is Chauncey DeVega?

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